Snatched 13-year-old ‘not pushed to talk of ordeal’

THE uncle of a 13-year-old American boy rescued four days after he was snatched on his way home from school said yesterday that no one is pushing the boy to talk about his ordeal.

Lloyd Bailie, the uncle of teenager Ben Ownby, told CBS’s Early Show that the boy was only talking with FBI counsellors.

“No one’s pushing him at this point to answer these questions,” Mr Bailie said. “The biggest concern is all of the media coverage — that somebody’s going to ask the wrong question. But at this point, everyone has been very respectful of Ben and his family.”

On Friday, police found Ben and another missing boy, Shawn Hornbeck, in the home of 41-year-old Michael Devlin. Shawn was 11 when he disappeared in 2002.

Authorities will not say how Devlin kept the boys confined in his home or what they believe to be his motive. Shawn seemed to have had every chance to escape during his captivity. He was left alone for hours to ride his bike, play video games and walk past missing-child posters showing his own age-progressed image.

Mental health experts say Shawn was probably kept mentally shackled by terror and domination from Devlin.

“I think it’s a real mistake to judge this child. Whatever he did to this point to stay alive is to his credit,” said Terri Weaver, an associate psychology professor at Saint Louis University, Missouri.

Ms Weaver, an expert on post-traumatic stress disorder, said children in such situations kicked into survival mode, “doing what needs to be done to keep yourself going day-to-day”.

Devlin was raised in the St Louis suburb of Webster Groves and got a job at the pizza parlour when he was in high school. He never left the restaurant over the years.

He has no apparent criminal past, except for a pair of traffic fines, officials said.

Devlin was arrested on Friday and jailed on a $1 million bond.

Yesterday, one of the officers who arrested Devlin said he knew the man even before he began staking out his home: he had eaten at the pizza parlour he managed.

“Obviously we were shocked. He was a very laid-back and quiet individual, so it kind of threw us for a loop also,” police officer Gary Wagster said on the CBS programme.